


Gone Fishing

by athena_crikey



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: First Time, Fishing, Fluff, M/M, Romance, h/c
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-05
Updated: 2016-02-05
Packaged: 2018-05-18 08:15:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,399
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5911909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athena_crikey/pseuds/athena_crikey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>DeBryn decides Morse needs taking out of himself. Post-Coda.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gone Fishing

As suddenly as it had begun, everything was suddenly over. Thursday ushered Joan away; Bright hurried off to deal with the fallout of the robbery-gone-wrong, and coppers and the clean-up crew started hustling through. Morse dropped more than sat on the truck’s bumper, the outside world streaming right on past his dazed eyes. 

It felt as though dry ice had been packed in under his skin, filling him with a damp, icy mist. The people hurrying past, the words being shouted – none of it registered as more than blurs of light and shadow, bursts of noise. He felt cold and isolated, the sweat on his skin turning chill. 

It wasn’t until a familiar fawn coat appeared in front of him and stopped there that he looked up, head rolling backwards as if on greased bearings. The fog cleared, just slightly. Enough for him to see DeBryn watching him, lips downturned. 

“Morse?”

“Doctor, this one’s been shot – and there are two dead,” came a distant voice, somewhere in the background.

“Morse?” asked DeBryn again, ignoring the summons.

“’M fine,” muttered Morse, straightening a little. “No injuries.” 

DeBryn’s eyes flashed from him to the man on the ground then back again before he nodded curtly and turned. The moment of clarity vanished like a leaf in the wind, and Morse felt the mist close in around him again.

This wasn’t the solitude he craved; there were others here. Gidderton, blood pouring from his stomach, the wet sound of his breathing echoing in the funereal hush of the bank. Matthews swivelling with the pistol, ready to take the shot that would end Morse’s life. The images played over and over in his brain, a broken cinema reel of horrors. It felt real, all the sound and colour and smell of those terrifying moments locked in here with him. The shadows moving around him in the alley were just shades lost in some other time.

It was ages – a hundred repeats of Gidderton’s death, of the gun – before DeBryn returned. Morse only came out of his murderous carousel of memories when the doctor pressed the back of his hand against Morse’s forehead. He felt the warmness of DeBryn’s skin against his like a light in the darkness and blinked away some of the grey shroud to see DeBryn in front of him, frowning. He let DeBryn take his pulse without protest, the doctor pushing the shirt collar away from his throat and pressing competent fingers against his neck. 

“Shock,” diagnosed DeBryn, curtly. “They oughtn’t to have left you out here.” He shrugged out of his coat and wrapped it around Morse’s shoulders; it was still warm, a soft embrace. Morse hunched down into it. 

“Come with me, Morse. Come on.” DeBryn helped him up, speaking to him like a child as he lead Morse through the alley with a hand on the small of his back. 

“The station,” murmured Morse blindly, reaching out for some sort of familiarity and grasping onto the first words that came to him. 

“Not today.” DeBryn shuttled him through the busy street and to his little car, opened the door and put him in. Morse went, clutching the coat tighter around him. 

“What’s your address, Morse? Your address?” repeated DeBryn, the words buzzing in Morse’s ears. It wasn’t until he put a hand on Morse’s shoulder that the young man turned to him, shaking away his stupor enough to give it.

He remembered very little else of the ride to his flat, and only slightly more of the trip from the car to his room, shepherded at every step by DeBryn. The doctor put him to bed, helping him off with his tie and jacket and pulling the blankets up around him. 

Morse woke some time later to find the flat dark and quiet, an empty tea cup on the bedside table and a rough patch on his tongue where the tea must have burnt it. DeBryn was long since gone, only the faint scent of his aftershave lingering. 

Morse lay awake for some time, staring at the ceiling as the day’s events played out again. He no longer felt frozen, trapped in a fog of confusion and fear. But seeing them with full clarity was scarcely better.

\---------------------------------------------------

He saw very little of DeBryn over the next few days – in fact, saw very little of anybody. He refused time off but found his attention wandering as he sat at his desk, the outside world passing him by as he pulled at his wounds over and over. The shot, the gun – now, Joan’s departure. Each time the empty ache of fear and heartbreak hurt a little less, but he still felt it. It seemed more real than the case files on local burglaries that lay on his desk. 

Morse caught a glimpse of the doctor a few times in the station, but he had been told that there was no chance of his being involved in the case; he was a victim, not a copper for the extent of the file. He played no part in the autopsies, nor in the meetings they spawned. He simply sat at his desk, picking away vaguely at the files in front of him, and still feeling very much at sea.

\---------------------------------------------------

He hadn’t been home long, was just sitting back with a drink and _Gotterdammerung_ when the knock came. Morse frowned but stood to answer it. DeBryn was in his doorway, cheeks pink from the fall chill and eyes bright. “May I come in?”

Morse stood back to let the doctor in, closing the door behind him and then taking DeBryn’s coat. He hung it on one of the hooks by the door, then led the way into his small flat. “Drink?” he offered, pouring one when the doctor inclined his head. DeBryn took the uncomfortable sitting chair, while Morse re-seated himself on the threadbare sofa. “Is this a social call?” he asked, with a sardonic smile. 

“In a matter of speaking. How are you holding up?”

Morse let the smile fall away and stared, eyes hard. “As well as can be expected, I imagine.” He traced the rim of his drink with his thumb, adding mulishly after a moment when DeBryn didn’t comment, “I’m fit enough.”

“I’m not here to evaluate you, Morse.”

“Then what?”

“I’ve spoken with Inspector Thursday about your taking some leave. You need taking out of yourself.”

“What I need,” retorted Morse, flaring up with the heat of offense, “is for people I care about to stop being hurt through my incompetence. For strangers to stop being shot to death in front of me.” He stopped, realised his grip on his glass was close to crushing and put it down on the end table. Ran a hand over his face, and then looked over at DeBryn. DeBryn, who was watching him with sadness and sympathy. 

“It wasn’t your fault. None of it.”

“If I hadn’t lied –”

“Then they would have shot him sooner. I’ve heard the whole of it from Thursday. They already knew him to be telling the truth, Morse. He was nothing more than a snitch to them, and there was nothing you could have done to save him.

Morse looked away, watching the record turning, the needle skating across its surface. “You can’t just tell yourself something like that,” he muttered, picking up his glass and swallowing the remaining contents in one go; the scotch burned his throat with a welcome warmth.

“No,” agreed DeBryn quietly. “You can’t. But sitting around drinking and listening to Wagner’s hardly going to help. Sometimes you need to work at forgetting, Morse. And sometimes that requires help.”

Morse sighed, picking at the edge of the sofa cushion. After a moment he let his head drop back and closed his eyes. “And what is it that you suggest?”

“I have holidays still owed to me, and access to a cottage on the Severn near Worcester. A few days on the river – some late season fishing for me, and whatever you care to do for yourself. Read, do the crossword, listen to your records. Some time away from the hurly-burly of Oxford.”

The hurly-burly. DeBryn was right enough – it was the city that was the problem. He heard a shot in every car back-firing or slammed door, smelt gun power in the smoke and combustion. Saw Ronnie Gidderton or Joan – or both – every time he passed the bank.

“You really want to vacation with me?” he asked wryly, sitting up. And was surprised to see slow, considered assent in DeBryn’s face.

“Well, you’ve quarrelled with everyone else,” was the doctor’s laconic reply. “I wouldn’t want to be left forgotten.”

“Hardly that. At the moment I think you…” he paused. Admitting that DeBryn was the only one left in who he could still place total trust was to betray Thursday and Strange. “…have little to worry about,” he finished lamely.

DeBryn smiled, fleeting but sincere. “I’m glad. There aren’t so many men who would take my word over Kemp’s.”

Morse returned the grin faintly. “Only those with any measure of sense.”

DeBryn rose, handing his empty tumbler back to Morse. “I’ll let you know the dates as soon as I’ve submitted my request. Pack warmly; the weather’s fickle this time of year.”

\-------------------------------------------------------

The week finished and the weekend rolled through, dark and stormy, before DeBryn succeeded in moving his holiday request through and obtaining the necessary coverage for his Home Office duties. Morse packed the usual necessities, a couple of shirts and sweaters, a pair of old flannel bags, and an extra blanket. He knew nothing of DeBryn’s cottage, but his time on the lake had taught him the chill water could bring. On top of the hastily-chosen clothes he packed his books, picked out with far more thought and care.

DeBryn picked him up early on the Monday morning, car exhaust white and cloudy with the overnight chill. The sky was ominously dark in the south but lightening in the north. Morse slung his case in the back beside the disassembled fishing rods, and they set off. 

He had intended to ask DeBryn exactly how the doctor had come up with this ridiculous notion, but the car was warm and the ride surprisingly smooth, and once he let his eyes close he found he didn’t have the strength to open them again.

Morse drifted in and out of dreams as the little Morris rumbled along, the heat pouring over his legs and flanks maintaining his soporific state. Now and then DeBryn hummed tunes to himself, insubstantial but recognisable airs that were somehow comforting in the thick honeyed dream state in which he found himself. Their gentle familiarity filtered through, and his sleep was languid and peaceful.

\-------------------------------------------------------------

He woke more than an hour later to find them driving through a forest, the trees tall and narrow with a wide green canopy stretching above. Mottled light was flickering over the Morris, a soft filtered light that gave the world a lingering dream-like feel. He wasn’t sure where they were, but found he didn’t mind. If he couldn’t find himself, perhaps neither would his nightmares. 

Morse became aware of a river running to the right of the car, down in a shallow gulley between the trees. Almost at that moment the world brightened and they shot out of the forest and into a gently-sloping countryside. The fields were green and gold, the hedges burning bronze with their autumn foliage. The road here was narrow and bordered by hedge walls, every now and then parted by a wooden gate. They climbed and descended several gentle hills before turning off onto a dirt road and finally coming to a stop.

“Morse? Oh, you’re awake. We’re here.”

‘Here’ was a small squat wooden cottage. It had a wooden slat roof that looked too big for it, the walls short and shadowed under its wide proportions. It was a square gingerbread-house of a place, square windows with the frames painted a cheery blue, a square red-brick chimney, and the front door a bright marigold yellow. It was a real fairy-tale home, slightly twee and utterly impractical.

DeBryn apparently caught him staring; he coughed. “It belongs to a colleague of mine at the Radcliffe, he lends it out. His wife has a certain eye for design,” he added, dryly.

“Indeed,” returned Morse in the same tone.

“However the beds are comfortable, and the setting excellent.” DeBryn handed Morse his case and pulled his own carpet bag and rods from the back seat. Lastly he produced a wicker basket, “Provisions.”

The cottage’s interior thankfully was more rustic than its outward appearance suggested; there was no lace nor china figures, and only the pastel walls and abundance of floral patterns were in questionable taste.

The space was practically laid out; two bedrooms side by side on one half of the cabin, living/dining area and kitchen on the other. Bathroom at the front opposite the entry space, with fairly new renovations to install a small shower. The furniture was wooden-framed with patterned upholstery – old and worn but still serviceable. Morse laid his suitcase down on an armchair and shrugged out of his coat, hanging it beside DeBryn’s on the stand. 

He hadn’t brought the turntable and records; it seemed too great an imposition on DeBryn, and too much to carry in any case. They put away their belongings and ate a cold meat lunch, then DeBryn took him down to the river.

The cottage looked out onto the Severn, the river flowing lazily past its windows. The bank itself was a good thirty yards down an easy slope, grass long and untidy. There were old gnarled apple trees here and there, heavy fruit weighing down the branches, and a peach that had already lost its peaches. Morse picked an apple to eat as they walked down to the river; the skin was tart but the flesh was crunchy and juicy. He wiped his face with the back of his hand, smiling at his own clumsiness. He caught DeBryn watching him and blushed slightly at his ill manners; DeBryn turned away without comment. 

It was clear this was meant to be a fishing hole; there was a path beaten down to the water and a smooth sloped entrance into the river where a fly fisher could take his place. The river’s flow was slow and languid, reeds growing unimpeded in its bed and along the edges. Something right out of The Wind in the Willows.

Once he had taken in the riverbank DeBryn took him back up the hill and showed him the firewood stacked against the side of the house, complete with stump and axe; Morse thought back to the callouses he had borne on his hands early in the year from the task. They had long since faded away, his hands smooth once more with city life. 

The sky was still overcast, the air cold, and they returned inside. Morse spent the afternoon reading Henry James; DeBryn caught up on back-issues of the BMJ and the Journal of Pathology. 

The day passed lazily, the way most of Morse’s days off tended to. DeBryn cooked dinner from the supplies he had brought; beans and toast and sausages. Simple fare, but it was to Morse’s taste – easy and filling. DeBryn had brought some whisky too and they drank that to follow, sitting in the floral-patterned armchairs and discussing poetry and police work and pathology. 

The evening passed almost too quickly; Morse hadn’t considered that DeBryn might be more than an equal in intellect – that he might also be interesting. He talked easily about the great poets, among them some of Morse’s favourites, and stood his ground when they turned to philosophy. And, against all odds he could make pathology not only comprehensible, but engaging. In its way it was another study of logic and deduction, and Morse listened to DeBryn explain the tests for various poisons and diseases with interest. 

And there was something more, something in the way he watched Morse with neither awe not paternal pride but a more egalitarian appreciation of Morse’s thoughts and company, that was in its own way heartwarming. It had been a long time since he had simply been recognized – neither praised nor rebuffed – for himself. Oxford, he thought, with a trace of sadness. 

Eventually, clock reading past one, they turned in. As DeBryn had said the beds were comfortable, and Morse fell sound asleep between the clean sheets.

\-------------------------------------------------------------

Breakfast was the remainder of the beans and toast, along with tea – better than his usual fare. The sun was shining bright and warm outside, and DeBryn declared his intention of going down to the river. 

“I have a second pole,” he offered, but Morse shook his head.

“I prefer dry land, thank you.”

They went down together, DeBryn heading for the river and Morse laying out a blanket and settling himself under one of the old apple trees with Henry James. He read to the soft swishing of DeBryn’s rod, caught up in the story, and finished the whole of The Turn of the Screw before looking up to find it past noon. DeBryn still showed no signs of tiring, so he went inside and made himself a sandwich, eating it alone before returning.

Outside again, he lay back with his head pillowed by the tree’s roots and watched the river with his book on his stomach. The warmth was making him torpid, as if the mellow sunlight were leaching into his blood and bones and slowing his movements. The world was all green and gold, and the river a steady flow through it. He watched DeBryn casting the line out and back, out and back, whipping it gently in the breeze. There was a delicacy, a kind of beauty to the work that he wouldn’t have predicted. DeBryn was surprisingly graceful, moving without hitch or hesitation, just a kind of thoughtless perfection. Morse’s eyes slowly closed. 

He dreamt of a green field under a clear sky, of apples lying strewn about his feet and a counterpane land of mismatched fields rising up to meet the sky at a dizzying angle. He was tumbling in the grass, rolling over with someone – a strong, solid frame for him to grind against. It felt good to be in another’s arms, felt right. His partner was a man and the man had DeBryn’s face, his questing hands running down Morse’s sides and over behind him, pulling them together. Morse sighed at the pleasure of it, rutted up against DeBryn’s firm hips until his prick ached and he moaned and – 

Morse shook awake, hot and hard. He was still lying by the river, sun shining down through the apple tree. The riverbank was empty; beside him someone was breathing softly. DeBryn, lying on the blanket at his side, his waders and equipment packed neatly away.

Morse staggered to his feet and stole back to the cottage, stroking himself through his trousers to take the edge off his aching cock. He stumbled into the bathroom and locked the door, grabbing a handful of toilet paper as he shoved his trousers down and took himself in hand with a breathless curse. 

His mind played through a series of fantasies as he bit his cheek against the raw need. Monica flashed through first, but she came with a bright flare of guilt, and he shoved her away. Joan next, pert and grinning, but a slower burning kind of shame followed and he dismissed her from his mind. Then, spurred doubtless by the dream, DeBryn slipped into his thoughts, and he moaned as his heart leapt and his cock ached with the sudden burst of arousal. He felt his face flushing as he pictured the doctor’s wry lips parting, soft tongue lapping against the head of Morse’s reddened cock; he gasped and came into the paper, gritting his teeth together against the cry that sought to voice itself. 

Morse took a few minutes to clean himself up and calm down before returning. DeBryn was still asleep, glasses tucked away beside him and face turned skywards. He looked younger, more innocent without his usual armour of sarcasm and wit. Morse’s heart sped and he looked away, back down to the river. Such thoughts weren’t just ridiculous, they were dangerous.

He was a good way into a second book by the time DeBryn awoke, stretching as he lay on the blanket. “Hullo,” he said, blinking up at Morse like a rather foolish owl. “You look as though you’ve had some sun.”

“I suppose I have,” replied Morse, feeling himself flush hot under his collar. And then, “Are we having fish for our dinner?”

DeBryn sat up, running a hand through his hair and pulling his glasses on. “We are. Three fat trout, cooked with dill and lemon. Don’t say I never gave you anything.”

“Certainly not,” replied Morse, smiling. “Sleep well?”

“Quite. There’s an unusual peace to this place, something Oxford can’t match.”

Morse leant back, mind still tinged at the edges with the warmth of his dream. “Yes. There is.”

\--------------------------------------------------------------

They had fish for dinner as promised, DeBryn cleaning them with surgical neatness and Morse cooking. They were perhaps not as fat as DeBryn had claimed, but they had potatoes and runner beans to balance out the meal and Morse made no comment on DeBryn’s perhaps over-enthusiastic pride. 

After dinner followed much the same as the previous night; scotch and discussion, although tonight they mostly gossiped about the Force, Oxford politics and the Radcliffe’s eccentric staffing roster. DeBryn wasn’t just witty, he had a dry sardonic humour that Morse, trapped all day in a station full of men who thought the latest in humour was Punch and Judy, found very refreshing. And he laughed at Morse’s rather poor, overly-cerebral jokes, which no one else did.

“Really,” said DeBryn at one point, after a rather vicious joke at Kemp’s behalf involving a Latin tag, “I wonder you can get on at all with your colleagues.”

“I wonder sometimes you can get on with your clients. But here we both are. Sometimes there’s nothing to do but accept being out of place with those around you. Or find those who fit you better,” he added, tongue lubricated by the alcohol. 

DeBryn snorted but drank to it, and they finished the discussion – and the whisky. 

\---------------------------------------------------------

Gidderton lay gasping wetly on the floor, blood pouring from his body. Morse could taste it in his own mouth, thick and hot and metallic – it was on his tongue, in his nose, down his throat; he was choking on it. He was lying, gasping as the blood seeped from him, his own stomach rent and the floor black with his lifesblood.

Morse awoke to the sounds of his own desperate shouts and found himself swaddled in his blankets, hot and sweating, his heart racing like a train. 

“Morse?”

The door opened to let in a long sliver of light and DeBryn appeared in navy pyjamas, one hand outstretched to guide him through the darkness of Morse’s room. 

Morse was shaking now, the heat beginning to leave him. He began to shiver, the memory of pain and blood still flooding his mind with terror. 

DeBryn sat down on the bed beside him, pressed the back of his hand to Morse’s forehead. “Here, it’s alright. You’re alright. A bit warm, but that will pass. Just breathe, Morse. Just breathe.” His voice was soothing, tone gentle and relaxed. Morse closed his eyes and choked breaths in through his tight throat, trying to stop shaking. Without noticing it he reached out and grabbed hold of DeBryn’s arm, took reassurance from its warmth and solidity. “That’s right; you’re alright. It was just a dream.”

“It wasn’t,” whispered Morse. “Not all of it.”

“There’s nothing to be done about that, Morse. Nothing you can do, nothing you could have then. You have to let it go.”

He was sitting so close, his knee against Morse’s; the urge to draw him closer still welled up in Morse. Stay, held in DeBryn’s arms until some of the sharpness faded from the world. But that was impossible, unthinkable. So he held DeBryn’s arm until the shadows slipped further away, and then let the doctor push him back down under the blankets. “Go back to sleep. You’re fine now,” said DeBryn.

Fine seemed to Morse at that moment the last thing he was.

\--------------------------------------------------

It rained the next day. Big, black storm clouds had set in overnight, and Morse woke to the sound of raindrops driving down on the wooden slats above. He got up to find DeBryn toasting bread; marmalade and jam was already set out on the table. 

“Alright?” asked DeBryn, looking up at him. 

“Fine,” replied Morse, taking a seat at the small table. They said nothing more about it. 

The jam was new – black current – and Morse smeared it lavishly on his bread, craving the taste of something tart and sweet. It might wash out the memory of blood in his mouth. 

“No fishing today, I suppose,” he said, around mouthfuls. DeBryn nodded.

“No. I thought of going for a walk in the woods later. It would still be damp, but with the trees for shelter certainly not pouring.”

“What’s there?” asked Morse, frowning in confusion. He’d grown up on the wolds; woods had never played much part in his childhood and as an adult he’d never had cause to have much to do with them either. As a civilian he thought of them only as a rather boring roadside feature; as a copper he thought of them as home to illicit rendezvouses, lost children and, just recently, tigers. 

“They’re old, and beautiful. Walking in them, without cars or houses or electricity, you can imagine what life was like here hundreds of years ago. Thousands. They connect us to our past in a way few things do anymore.”

“And you seek that connection?” asked Morse.

DeBryn paused, thoughtful. “We must be more in this life than solitary, alone. I suppose I seek a reminder of that. Sometimes in the crowd of the city, I feel we’ve never been so alone before. We have everything in our lives to make us self-sufficient, wanting for nothing. And needing nothing from others.”

Morse wiped the crumbs from his face, tilting his head consideringly. “Sometimes I think that’s one of the greatest gifts of the modern age.”

“Do you seek to be alone?” DeBryn’s eyes were very pale, Morse noticed for the first time, like the sea on a stormy day. He was watching Morse closely, with something like pity – or worry?

Morse shook his head ruefully. “No. It’s just how I often find myself.”

\---------------------------------------------------------------

They walked through the fields to the wood, DeBryn’s umbrella sheltering them. The fields were sodden but not muddy, and soon they came under the eaves of the forest. DeBryn collapsed the umbrella and left it leaning against a large chestnut, its spike-tipped leaves dripping water down onto them. 

They hurried on into the woods themselves, and as DeBryn had said here they were mostly sheltered from the cords of rain. All around them the forest was alive with the sound of it, though, beating against the leaves above, dripping down onto the earth below and setting the branches shivering. The background hush of it was almost the sound of a distant river; there was something clean and calm about it. 

The ground rose and fell in tightly-packed hillocks, the trees and their massive root bulbs forming the hills and the space between them the valleys. Bright green moss climbed the trunks and spread out on the forest floor, incredibly vivid. Sprigs of dove-grey lichen hung from the higher branches, soft and delicate as lace.

DeBryn had been right – it felt ancient. Ancient and beautiful, in a way that was entirely different from Oxford’s stone monuments and stretching spires. 

They walked a long way in silence, Morse staring up at the trembling canopy above them, at the trees all around bursting with life and vibrancy. “It _is_ beautiful,” he said at last, as they crested another hillock and came to stand in a natural clearing. The trees didn’t quite meet in the middle and rain was pouring in as though through a funnel, gathering in a large puddle in the centre. 

“Yes,” said DeBryn. “Practically the river is what I come here for, but there’s something about this place that’s rejuvenating. Especially in the rain.”

He was right. They were refreshing – rejuvenating, these woods. A reminder that there was still life and serenity in the world, completely untouched by what he had seen or done. 

“I’m glad to share it with someone,” went on DeBryn, as they began skirting the clearing. “I’ve always –”

His leg skidded on the wet, muddy earth and he tilted wildly to the side, scrambling to find his balance. Morse reached out and grabbed him, pulled him up and away. They stood there for an instant, DeBryn in Morse’s arms, and then broke away. 

“Clumsy,” commented DeBryn, fussily annoyed. And then, “Are you alright?”

“Yes.” Morse, feeling the wild thrumming of his heart, looked away. “Yes, fine.”

“Somehow when you say that, I can never quite believe it. Morse?” He laid a hand on Morse’s arm; Morse pulled it away, turning.

“Doctor – I’m sorry, I –”

“I think you might call me Max,” said DeBryn, dryly, tucking his hands back in his pockets. Morse stared, and he frowned. “You needn’t look so scared; I rarely bite.”

“No – it’s not – never mind.” He ran a hand through his hair and found it damp and tangling. “I only go by Morse,” he added, a little miserably.

“So I understand.” At Morse’s enquiring look he gave a smile. “It’s hardly new information, Morse. Half the station wants to know what you’re called; the other half claims not to care.”

Of course. People always had to be so curious, no secret left unbothered. “And you?” he asked, trying for careless and not hearing it so much as accusation.

“I think you value your privacy – never letting the world within more than an arm’s length. Oh, you always have reasons,” he added. “But few others with them would build such walls to keep the world out.”

“You’re closer to me now than that,” he said, meaning in distance and realising the ambiguity only after he spoke. He didn’t correct himself, and DeBryn raised his eyebrows, a little mockingly.

“Yes, Morse, having fallen. Do you only reach out to others when you fear for them?”

Morse took in a slow breath. “Perhaps I do. Perhaps then, at least, I know I won’t be rebuffed. Or perhaps I just wait until it’s too late, and miss my chance.”

DeBryn licked his lips, still close beside Morse. “I’m still here,” he said softly. Morse felt a shock run through him, his heart stumbling and then picking up at twice the pace. He reached out tentatively, and DeBryn stepped into his embrace even as he wrapped his arm over the doctor’s shoulder. 

For a moment they stood entwined under a dripping plane tree, DeBryn’s breath tickling his ear; the doctor was only an inch or so shorter, and as his fingers carded through Morse’s hair Morse felt the reassuring surety of their movements. Emboldened, Morse bent his head and pressed his lips against DeBryn’s – soft, warm, and opening to his seeking tongue.

The world turned for him then, adrenaline and arousal running twined through his blood like liquid fire; he let DeBryn push him back against the tree’s trunk, his hands slipping beneath DeBryn’s jacket to run over his back, spine, sides. DeBryn’s left hand remained tangled in Morse’s hair but his right ran down, down, down, past Morse’s belt to frame his arse. Morse groaned into the kiss, all his blood going to his cock with the sudden heady remembrance of yesterday. 

“I dreamt something like this,” he said, breaking the kiss for breath. DeBryn, his cheeks pink and his eyes bright, pulled back with a wry look.

“I’m sorry it was so traumatic.”

Morse blinked, then caught his meaning. “No, no, not last night – in the afternoon while I slept by the river.” 

“And how did it end?” asked DeBryn, still teasing.

“I’ll show you, if you like. Perhaps we should go back,” he suggested huskily. DeBryn pulled him in for a quick kiss, then took his arm and lead him back. 

\-------------------------------------------------------

They returned through the fields, huddled tight under the umbrella, this time all hands like a pair of teenagers. They passed the woodpile as they came up to the door, and Morse stopped to collect some in his arms. Inside, while DeBryn tucked away the umbrella and their coats, he laid a quick fire – paper, kindling and wood in a neat arrangement – then lit it. 

He turned to find DeBryn behind him in just his vest and shorts, glasses gone and eyes shadowed. They hadn’t turned on any lights when they came in, the daylight coming in through the square windows painting the world grey. The fire was leaping up though, all shades of red and orange, and in its heat DeBryn pushed off Morse’s shirt and then dropped his hands to his belt. Morse swallowed against the sudden lump in his throat, and then ducked in to press kisses against DeBryn’s neck as the doctor unzipped his trousers and pushed them down, his hands caressing Morse’s arse once more.

He wasn’t exactly a stranger to taking a man to bed – there had been a lad on his staircase in his first year of university, the two of them lonely and alone in a new city, and although things had never gone too far between them Morse had discovered that giving another pleasure could be nearly as good as receiving it. 

He found now that he didn’t just want the pleasure of the act – he wanted DeBryn along with it; it meant nothing without him. He could feel DeBryn’s hardness against his thigh, hot through the cotton of his underwear. Morse dropped a line of kisses along DeBryn’s throat, collarbone, through his vest as he trailed lower. He hooked his thumbs through the band of the shorts and paused on his knees, looking up questioningly at DeBryn.

The doctor was watching him with his lip caught between his teeth, eyes hungry. “Please,” he gritted out, harsh and desperate. Morse smiled and pulled the fabric down over DeBryn’s swollen cock, felt him shiver.

He leant in to run his lips up DeBryn’s thigh, letting just a touch of teeth through. DeBryn caught his hands in Morse’s hair, fingers carding needily through the damp locks. “Please,” he said again, voice rougher this time, and Morse obliged. Pressed a row of kisses from root to tip, then took DeBryn’s cock into his mouth with a wet stroke of his tongue. DeBryn moaned, hands fluttering, and leaned into it. 

It had been years since he’d done this last; he had forgotten how it stoked his own hunger, how the taste of DeBryn made his own cock leak in aching sympathy. He spread his legs, closing his eyes against the brief press of fabric; he wanted more. He bobbed his head, sucking hard now, and DeBryn made a low, pleading noise. Morse looked up, caught sight of DeBryn staring at him with flushed cheeks and shuttered eyes; saw him swallow thickly at the sight of Morse swallowing him down. His hips twitched forward, snapping involuntarily, and then he came, filling Morse’s mouth with his seed and, to Morse’s surprise, swearing between his gritted teeth. Morse pulled back, stroking him down through the shuddering aftermath. He reached up and took DeBryn into his arms, the doctor dropping down eagerly to sprawl against him.

Morse, achingly hard now, kissed DeBryn feverishly. His tongue still tasted of the other man and he shared it, half-mounting DeBryn to rut up against him. The doctor’s hand fell between them, sliding under the elasticized band of his pants, and began to stroke him. Morse groaned, canting into it, curling his body against DeBryn’s heat. DeBryn was pulling hard at Morse’s cock, grinding his fist down against his balls and Morse bit hungrily at his shoulder, wanting – needing – more. The pace intensified, Morse digging his fingers into DeBryn’s back as he panted, craving more, craving release.

DeBryn ran his thumb up over the head of Morse’s prick, tracing along the slit and rubbing at the sensitive tip and Morse shouted out as his orgasm took him. The world whited out as DeBryn took him over the edge, holding him tight as he bucked through it. Then DeBryn was tugging him down and they were lying together by the fire on the old carpet smelling of dust and more faintly mud, tangled together as their breathing slowed. 

“Is this why you brought me out here?” Morse asked at last, his hand resting on DeBryn’s chest, his forehead against the other’s temple. “Did you think – I mean, did you want…?”

“You thought I was in the habit of inviting all the constables on vacation with me?” asked DeBryn, dryly.

“I’m a sergeant now,” replied Morse, rather primly. He felt DeBryn shift against him.

“Really? Congratulations. Not all news spreads so quickly to the hospital.” The doctor rolled over to kiss him, open-mouthed, until Morse felt himself growing dizzy. 

“Thank you,” he said, when they broke apart. “No one else took much notice.”

“Sadly such is often the case when something is long coming. No longer a feat, merely an expectation.”

Morse smiled at the second, perhaps unintended, complement. “And this? You and I?”

“Certainly a feat, not an expectation. Although also a hope, I might say, I’ve carried for some time.”

They lay together silently, just the crackle of the fire and the heat of the flames on their bare skin. “Max?”

“Yes?”

“You were right, you know. About me – I’ve never been much good at seeing what it is I wanted, never mind taking it. But I’ve always been grateful to those who can.”

“Are you thanking me, Morse?”

Morse closed his eyes, listened to the rain beating down overhead and the quiet sear of the fire. He slipped his hand over DeBryn’s, threading their fingers together. “I suppose I am.”

END


End file.
